EASTER PEOPLE IN ALL OUR BROKENNESS 15/04/18

Deacon Christine Saccali

 

Christ is risen he is risen indeed. Christos Anesti, Alithos o kirios.

May God be on my lips and in all our hearts.

Isn’t it great that that resounding Easter cry is still ringing out and we hear it for the next 5 weeks until after Ascension as we reach Pentecost! This Eastertide has been a rather special time for our family with the safe birth of our first grandchild Elizabeth.

My son’s partner, Irini whose name means peace, said something wonderful and prophetic in the week before the scheduled caesarean surgery, what she said was “the date is all set and then we will meet her.” And boy (well, girl in this case) have we done so and we will begin to get to know her and she us. New birth and at an appropriate time of the year with life springing up everywhere this season.

However, with wonderful joy comes mixed feelings in my opinion, not mixed blessings though.

This birth triggered recollections of other births and ones not to be: along  with a new presence and an additional member of the families came a recollection on both sides of those who are no longer with us and the role they had to play in our lives.

The disciples must have been on an emotional rollercoaster too after the crucifixion of their beloved Lord and the incredible resurrection. We have a great deal to learn about ourselves and Christ in these readings in the weeks after Easter and how the Risen Jesus continues to appear to us  in our lives, how and when we encounter him and how we are witness to Him in life’s experiences just like the first disciples were.

The most important thing to recall from today’s reading, I   consider, is that when Jesus appears to the disciples in the Upper Room he brings peace- not just any peace but the peace that passes all understanding. True peace in amongst the world’s confusion, bustle and scars. And aren’t we praying for peace at the moment?  World peace especially remembering Yemen, Syria and Nigeria.

The second thing, I think to take from this passage in the final chapter of Luke, is that it is the other half of the Emmaus road story and comes right at the end of the gospel. This is the flip side to that story if you like.

The third thing is the fact that Luke’s gospel ends in Jerusalem and his next book of Acts starts there. Jerusalem as our obligatory readings from Acts during this season show, is where the disciples were witnesses to the resurrection at first.

In this first resurrection appearance in the upper room Jesus shows his hideous scars from the nails and spear that pierced his side. Emphasis is on the fact that seeing Jesus alone was not enough, like on the road to Emmaus it was too mind blowing and shocking when the memory of his crucifixion was so fresh in the mind.  Sometimes I believe we travel through Lent, reach the cross and stand there, getting to the empty tomb and resurrection still clinging to the cross and without living a new wholesome life with these scars.

When we are bereaved or indeed blessed by a new beginning, a new member of the family for example a birth or a wedding, then we have to start again building up relationships maybe not from scratch but with new dynamics. It is not easy. So we need now to build on our relationship with Christ, His birth, life, ministry and death now to rise again.

It IS easy for Easter to be a joyful time, a bright celebration of Spring in this part of the hemisphere but resurrection is so much more than that. True it is joyful but not bubbly party joy, true it is about new life, but it is about so much more than the new life bursting from the ground. We may be able to see resurrection that is allowed to flourish within us and others in the wounds of life, where we allow God to Easter around us.

Resurrection is seen in places of damage which is why it gives us so much hope. We see resurrection flourish within us and others in the wounds of life where we allow God to enter, rub the wounds with salt and bring them to life again and Easter within us. We have to want to do that. Pain and scars and scabs are not denied but can become transformed and become beautiful and healing for ourselves and others if we become vulnerable and allow God to Easter in us.

We are Easter people; Christianity would have withered away without Easter; a longing to see and recognize Christ in a new form. But resurrection is not a pretty picture, as it is often painted, it reflects the messiness of life and of the crucifixion but it does not only dwell there and on the suffering. It is the reality of God with us in our brokenness, despite our brokenness we are alive and whole and healed. If only we could see through the cross and the empty tomb and beyond to the resurrection and new life revealed in the scars, though we come in doubt and questioning, with all our hurt and pain on display in our vulnerability if only we dare to show it.

Let us just stop and think in these great days of Easter where we would like to see Resurrection in ourselves, our lives and in the world. In those painful places where we must enter, rolling away the huge boulder that can dam up our hearts and feelings which stop us being alert to where Christ and his Spirit dwells in us.

We are blessed today in St Paul’s to have the choir with us, they have left their homeland to encounter new experiences and be witnesses. Next week the twins will be baptized here in St Paul’s; again this is a wonderful sharing and witness to the resurrection life and sharing of our Christian family life. New members will join us.

Today I pray that in our brokenness and joy we will embrace ourselves, encounter each other in the scars and healing of the cross and resurrection order in to truly see the Risen Christ and feel His presence and peace with us to inspire us as his witnesses.

Christos anesti alithos o Kirios AMEN